


murder ballads and other songs

by kyrilu



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Obsession, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 02:38:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1534523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/pseuds/kyrilu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The prayer of going nowhere going nowhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	murder ballads and other songs

Will quotes the line with his eyes closed, his memory holding and the lesson plans still stuck somewhere in his head: “‘The next job I do I shall clip the lady’s ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly wouldn’t you.’”

It is Matthew’s shift. He’s coming through the door with that slouching walk of his, his hands in his pockets, his footsteps echoing down the empty cell block. Will knows that his voice is the first thing that Matthew hears.

Will continues, “The package wasn’t Van Gogh, or just only copying Abigail Hobbs’ ear. It was...inspiration, from elsewhere.” He taps his fingers on the rough fabric of his coveralls, and repeats, _“Wouldn’t you?”_

Matthew turns the corner, now coming into full view, and he presents Will with a bow, his hand set in a flourish. His white scrubs swirl around him as if it’s a coat, and it may very well just be, with the air of pride and demonstration that he’s putting on for Will. “Glad you caught that,” he says. “Homage upon homage upon homage, Mr. Graham.”

Will’s smile is wry. “You would’ve made a good FBI trainee, once upon a time.”

Matthew approaches the bars, and he’s teasing. Playful. “So we could’ve had a forbidden teacher-student romance instead of an orderly-prisoner one? Scandalous. Lounds would be delighted.”

Will laughs. It’s not quite the appropriate reaction, but he laughs anyway. Their fingers dash over each other’s in the dark - Will’s hands and Matthew’s hands that once made fire for him. In every single universe, it’s _right_ that Matthew would be an apostle, a disciple of Will’s, in a way that would make him afraid.

_You would’ve made a good FBI trainee._

But he’s been in a cell of his own. He’s been building his fires since he was young; he’s been nursing his urges since he was born. He’s been warped as the tattoo designs that he designed himself and for himself, Matthew Brown and his self-made divinity even if tinged with allusions.

Will thinks: trading glances across a classroom. That one idiotically gleeful student who tried to engage with his lecturer. He thinks: telling Matthew not to use the word ‘assume’ in front of Jack Crawford, and eating lunch together in his empty classroom, where he’d smile at the dogs. (When he reaches underneath Matthew’s shirt, there’s a rosary at his neck.)

He thinks: Matthew going to a deserted church on Sunday night, leaning over the candles, and Will at the pews, attempting to follow along. _You’re doing it backwards_ , Matthew says, when Will tries to mime the sign of the cross, and Matthew gives him a rueful smile and kisses his fingers. Matthew is too interested in blood and viscera, and Will indulges him with gruesome histories, but eventually, they go home. (Their fingers dash over each other’s in the dark.)

Instead, there’s this.

“Speaking of saucy Jack,” Matthew says, and his eyes are dark, and Will knows exactly what he is, “there was a killer they used to call the female Jack the Ripper. They found her crazy and sent her to a state hospital for the criminally insane. This Jack had herself a favorite nurse, who, one day told her that she was leaving the hospital. Jack got to her knees and pleaded, over and over again, her to stay.

“Beg me to stay, Mr. Graham. I will.”

The rest of the story goes like this: this Jack grabbed a pair of scissors from the nurse’s hip, a flash of metal in the light, and stabbed her over and over again.

_Beg me to stay._

Will closes his eyes and does.


End file.
